“William,” he shot back as an angry heat filled him.
“Stop this foolishness,” the earl said, his voice loud enough to fill the room. “You are William.”
That was the very last thing Nick would ever become. “He may have donated half my DNA, but I am not him.”
Confusion darkened the older man’s eyes, and he stood there for a second not moving, his eyes wide. Then he blinked several times and let out a shaky breath. “Of course not.”
Then, without another word or any sort of further explanation, the earl left, his gait a little slower, a little more cautious than usual, leaving Nick to contemplate the bomb that had just gone off in his own head. The story the old man had just shilled couldn’t be right. He glanced down at the proof in his hand and gave in again to the one thing that had always served him well in these situations—the voice that told him to run.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Nick was asses to elbows with humanity in Manchester waiting to get into a metal tube so he could finally fly back over the Atlantic. His seat was cramped, the old lady next to him wouldn’t stop talking, and he’d forgotten to put his headache medication in his carry-on. That meant no sweet oblivion called sleep while he waited for his flight to be called—especially not with Mrs. Damerschmidt of Rahway, New Jersey, telling him every little detail of her grandson’s mastery of the alphabet at only eleven months.
“The boy is a prodigy. You say A and he picks up the block and stuffs it straight in his mouth. It’s too big for him to swallow so you don’t have to worry about that, but it does get a little messy. Our little booger doesn’t like to give back those wood blocks once they’re in his mouth. You don’t think he could be harmed by the paint chips on the block, do you?”
She looked at him expectantly.
“I don’t think they use lead-based paint on kids’ toys anymore,” he said, more on autopilot than any actual frame of reference beyond who in the hell would still use poisoned paint.
“Oh good, that makes me feel so much better,” she said, heaving a relieved sigh. “You really are the nicest. I can’t tell you how nice it was to sit down in my seat and realize that you were American. I’ve missed hearing home, you know what I mean?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Home. The word didn’t come with an automatic image of his Virginia lake house anymore, and that was a problem.
“And the manners, your mama must be so proud. Listen to me prattling on like you’re a boy when you probably have a boy of your own.”
A towheaded baby with big blue eyes flashed in his mind. “No, ma’am.”
“Well, you need to get working on that. I’m sure your mother tells you that all the time.” She pivoted in her seat to better face him, glancing down at the dog collar he’d placed on the small table between their chairs. “Now, what is that thing you keep messing with? It looks like a dog collar, but there’s more to it.”
“It’s a little something I’ve been working on.” And he’d finally be able to give it his full attention now that he wouldn’t be distracted by Brooke or Bowhaven or the earl.
“Come now, you can’t keep a secret from me. I’m a stranger; you’ll never see me again, so there’s no harm in telling me everything.”
“It’s nothing that deep, just a voice-activated dog collar. It measures a dog’s anxiety level via their pulse and, when needed, plays back a prerecorded message that’s supposed to calm the dog down.”
Mrs. Damerschmidt nodded. “But it makes the pooch go wild.”
“Afraid so.”
“They seem like such simple creatures, but they always know, don’t they?”
“Ma’am?”
Her face got a soft, faraway look to it. “Well, I had a french bulldog named Rufus a few years ago before he got hit by a bus.” She made the sign of the cross. “Poor guy was always more curious than smart. Well, he knew my husband’s car, his footsteps, even his breathing pattern for when he finally fell asleep and it was safe for Rufus to jump on the bed and snuggle in without fear of getting told to get down and go to his own doggie bed. He wouldn’t have been fooled with a fake. Even silly dogs know the real thing when they feel it. It’s love. Human or canine, we know it when we know it, know what I mean?”
Did he? His gut clenched at an image of Brooke smiling at him at the Fox. The sound of her unexpected laugh. The way that even as she was acting like Lady Lemons, some of her natural spit and vinegar came through. Her determination to make Bowhaven a better place whether it wanted to be or not. Did he know love? His chest ached. He did. And he’d walked away. Not that he had a choice. She’d told him to go, and he had.
Something must have shown on his face because she patted his arm. “What’s her name and what did you do to mess it all up?”
“What makes you think it was me?” Him? Defensive? Never.
“I know I look every one of my sixty-six years, buddy. Don’t even try to pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining. I stole that from the TV judge. I love that line. Use it on my Jerry all the time. Now, fess up.”
And because they were about to get on a plane and go thirty thousand feet in the air over the Atlantic Ocean with hours to go in a cabin where the lights were dimmed and the sound of soft snoring the only noise, he did. He started with the emails and the texts to meeting Lady Lemons at the airport to the zombie wedding ball and everything in between. By the time he ended, Mrs. Damerschmidt was shaking her head.
“You need serious help,” she said, flinging the insult while managing to not make it sound like one. “My Jerry does, too. I think it has something to do with that Y chromosome you’ve got in common.”
“How is this my fault?” Nick asked.